Castell de Guadalest Spain 2011

Google Maps: Castell de Guadalest,Costa Blanca,Spain

This shot is of the dam at Guadalest taken from “El Castellet” a fort built high above Guadalest on the opposite side. It is not known exactly who built this fort or why. To get to the fort you have to take a mountain path for about 3 kilometers (a pretty stiff climb that gets even harder the last 300 meters). The vista from the fort is amazing and you can only guess at what motivated the people to build a stone fort so high up on a ridge like this. (the whip i suspect)! Start of the route is from the village of Catells de Castells.

Guadalest is a quaint village overlooking the dam that has very much become a tourist attraction and it contains mostly gift shops,souvenir shops and bars and restaurants. Everyone has to make a living! On any day the car parks are full of tourist buses, but it´s worth a visit if your in the area.

The Dam on the other hand is a beautiful,serene place full of wildflowers, birds and some rare plants and animals so i´m told. There is a tour boat that starts at the entrance to the dam that is entirely powered by solar energy, with the entire roof an array of Solar Panels,it circumnavigates the lake and is almost entirely silent, all you can hear are the propeller blades in the water. You can hear people talking on the boat in the middle of the lake whilst sitting on the bank.

On the Easter weekend the banks are full of young people camping but amazingly everyone respects the natural beauty of the place and there is almost no litter or rubbish left behind.

This dam provides water for the region and is not a electricity generating dam.